Sent two agents to B.C. Stewart Bell National Post

Monday, December 16, 2002

Osama bin Laden sent two operatives to Canada to post bail for a jailed member of his al-Qaeda network, according to the newly released confession of an Egyptian who travelled to Vancouver to act as middleman in the transaction.

The two al-Qaeda members were dispatched to B.C. with US$3,000 to secure the release of Essam Hafez Marzouk, according to a transcript of the interrogation of Abul-Dahab, the middle-man, obtained last week by the SITE Institute terrorism research group in Washington, D.C.

Marzouk, who was arrested in 1993 upon arrival at Vancouver airport, knew bin Laden from the Soviet war in Afghanistan and later ran one of his terrorist training camps.

Abul-Dahab, one of the men sent to help him, was a sales representative for a chemical company and described the trip as a "jihad mission" to free Marzouk.

Abul-Dahab said he was instructed to withdraw the money from a California bank account and give it to another al-Qaeda agent, Ali Mohamed.

Both Abul-Dahab and Ali Mohamed travelled to B.C. with the cash "to try and release jihad member Essam Mohamed Hafez Marzouk who had been arrested by Canadian authorities, and to pay his bail," according to the Egyptian police report.

He said he was told that "this money was from Osama bin Laden to help Essam Mohamed Hafez who was imprisoned in Canada," according to a transcript of his interrogation.

He said bin Laden's money was delivered to Marzouk's Vancouver lawyer.

However the lawyer, Phil Rankin, told the National Post he did not recall getting any money from Marzouk's colleagues.

"I have no recollection of ever receiving money from anybody but Marzouk," he said. "Maybe his wife brought me some money at some point, I can't recall that even."

Marzouk was arrested for carrying a false Saudi passport. He spent almost a year in detention in B.C. but was released and his claim for refugee status was accepted.

Only later did Canadian and U.S. intelligence agents discover that Marzouk was not only a veteran of the war in Afghanistan but also an active member of the Egyptian wing of al-Qaeda, Al Jihad.

He is suspected of involvement in planning the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200.

He left Canada in 1997, reportedly to fight the Serbs in Kosovo, and was later found in Azerbaijan and taken to Egypt, where he is now jailed.

Last fall, stationery belonging to his B.C. company, 4-U Enterprises, was found in an al-Qaeda safehouse in Kabul.

Mr. Rankin, a well-respected Vancouver lawyer, said Marzouk, who drove trucks in B.C. and collected welfare, had about $20,000 in all.

"I got paid but I can't recall how the money came to me, but it didn't come to me from that guy," he said.

Before his arrest on terror-related charges, Abul-Dahab was involved in the financing of al-Qaeda operations. He would receive "jihad money transfers" from bin Laden aides and redirect them to terrorist cells around the world.

The money went "to various jihad stations in Pakistan, Egypt, Yemen, Australia and Canada," the Egyptian police report says.

One of the transfers to Pakistan "was used to fund the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad," it says.

-- Anonymous, December 16, 2002